


Spring Cleaning

by fearlessfan



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/178024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearlessfan/pseuds/fearlessfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring Cleaning. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Cleaning

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Casino Night.

A week after Casino Night, a memo comes in over the fax machine from New York: spring cleaning this week in the office. Michael trashes every fax from headquarters that relates to actual work and treasures the ones that don't. This one falls in the middle.

"Cleaning. Yech. Get enough of that at home," Michael says, looking meaningfully at the camera.

Pam looks over at Jim, expecting to see him looking at back at her, with an expression that says, What? But he isn't looking at her. He's staring at the papers on his desk with a determined expression, a pen in his hand. A Rollerball 3X, dark blue. His favorite.

"Right, Pam?"

"Mm," Pam says, the sound she makes when she feels like she has to acknowledge something Michael has said even though she'd rather not. She makes the sound a lot.

~

Jan Levinson calls from Corporate at noon.

"Hey there, Jan."

"Michael," Jan says. Her voice is crisp, but Michael can hear the feelings underneath.

"I've been meaning to call you. Carol told me to tell you what a great time she had talking to you."

"Yes, well, I had a good time too."

"That's great!" Michael leans back in his chair, twirls a pencil in his hands. He can tell this is going to be a good day. "How are things at headquarters? Everything copasetic in the 4-7?"

There's a pause. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It's from NYPD – never mind. So, what's up?" The pencil spins out of Michael's hand and lands on his desk, next to his World's Best Boss trophy. He has a matching mug but can't find it, now.

"Did you get the fax we sent over this morning?"

"Got it, put it in the special filing bin, just like all the other faxes from corporate." Michael looks up, already half-pointing at the garbage bin next to his desk, but the cameras are by Creed's desk. No audience.

"That's fine, as long as it gets done. It's very important that this happens in a timely fashion. We're going to be inspecting each branch soon."

Michael sighs and picks up the trophy. "Jan, people are working here. It's –"

"Just do it."

The trophy has something on its face, or face-like-region. Black smudges. Michael tries to wipe it off and sees: it's a mustache and goatee and, well, it's not just the face. He's going to need a new trophy. "Okay. Fine."

Another pause. "Michael," she says, the sharp edge to her voice muted, almost gone.

"What, Jan?" Michael suddenly feels very tired.

"You need to do a good job with this. We've already talked about the possibility of layoffs and branch closures, and now that the Albany branch is turning around under the new leadership, you really need to -"

"Albany! Like we have to worry about Albany. It's not even a real city."

"It's the capital of New York State."

Michael laughs. "I'm not so sure about that."

"Right. Goodbye, Michael." Her voice is clipped and formal again.

"Bye," Michael says, but she's hung up already. He puts the phone back and stares at the faded, smudged face of his trophy before hitting the intercom button. "Pam, get everyone in the conference room."

~

Dwight admires the way Michael conducts a meeting. The casual confidence, effortless humor, brilliant insights. He usually starts with a few jokes that are beyond the mental reach of most of the staff, but not Dwight.

"Ha! That's right!" Dwight says when Michael gets to the punchline.

"Dwight, I wasn't finished."

"Right, sorry." Occasionally, Michael is so ahead of the curve that even Dwight doesn't see the destination.

"Anyway, like I was saying, 'the man' is asking us to clean our office like we're the hired help – no offense, Oscar -- and while at first I was going to just ignore it, something happened today that made me realize that this may be an opportunity. A golden opportunity. Which means a good opportunity. Does anybody here recognize this?"

Dwight does; his hand was in the air before Michael finished his question. "It is your World's Best Boss Trophy, which I purchased for you last year for Boss's Day."

"Right, just needed the title there, Dwight. It's a trophy. My trophy. And if you can see, someone has drawn all over the trophy, in a semi-obscene way." Michael starts walking around the room, through and around the messy organization of chairs. "What I realized is that we need to grow. Connect. Value each other more. This is something I would usually see as HR's department, but since their efforts have led to the current work environment, I don't think they can be expected to handle this."

Dwight turns and gives Toby a scathing look.

Toby is looking at Michael. "Michael, what are you suggesting?"

Michael holds up the other item he carried in with him, a turquoise lunch tote. "I'm getting to that. I have put each of your names in this bag. We will all pick one out, and whichever name you pick, that is the workspace you will be cleaning."

Angela says, "But we already cleaned."

Michael shakes his head. "No, see, this is different than before, more than just cleaning, Angela! We'll be learning about each other. By the end of work today, you're going to see the person whose name you draw in a very different way."

Jim raises his hand. "Just so I'm clear here – we will be cleaning the person whose name we draw?"

Phyllis shakes her head. "Michael, I'm not sure I'm comfortable –"

Michael waves the lunch tote. "No! No, no, no. Jim. You will be cleaning the workspace belonging to that person."

"Oh, okay. That makes sense." Jim is wearing a satisfied little smile and looking right at Dwight, his eyebrows raised.

Dwight knows what that means. "Question: Can we officially block certain co-workers from the cleaning task due to past behavior?"

"No."

"But-"

"I said, no," Michael says. Dwight can't argue with that kind of command.

Stanley can. "This is stupid."

"Stanley-" Michael puts a hand to his forehead. "That attitude is not helping. Let's get started. Jim, you pick first."

Jim picks himself.

"That won't work," Michael says.

Jim holds up the piece of paper. "You said we had to clean the space of the person we selected, and I selected myself, so-"

"But the whole purpose is to work on someone else's space, Jim."

"All right. Can I pick someone else? I pick Dwight."

Dwight raises his hand. "Michael!"

Michael sighs. "You can't pick someone else, someone else has to pick you, since your name is out of the bag."

Jim is still holding onto his slip of paper. "Why? Anyway, I already picked me."

"Yes, but-"

Dwight raises his hand. "Question –"

Michael shakes his head. "Dwight, I don’t really have time for your questions."

"But I was going to ask whether I could -"

"I'll do it," Pam interrupts.

Dwight looks over at Pam, whose hand is tentatively in the air. She's wearing an innocent expression. "I'll do it. I'll take Jim's name," she says.

Dwight is outraged. "Michael!"

"Not now, Dwight. Okay, fine. Pam, you take Jim's name, and Jim, you take Pam's."

Dwight shakes his head and looks over at Jim, expecting to see a familiar mix of smugness and satisfaction on his features. He doesn't find it there.

~~

Pam stops Jim by the conference room door, and lets the other people file out into the office ahead of them. She leans in close to him, probably so she can speak quietly, but waits a few seconds to say anything. She's looking away from Jim, maybe checking for camera people, or trying to find the right words. Jim doesn't really care; he has been trying his hardest not to think about her, but at this distance, it's impossible. All he can think about is how nice she smells, how much he wants to kiss her.

Finally, she looks up at him. She seems nervous. "I could see that Dwight was about to pounce, so -"

"Yeah, thanks."

Jim kind of thinks Dwight would be preferable.

Pam can tell. "Is that all right? I know - "

"What? Yeah, of course." Jim does his best fake what-are-you-talking-about face, and then adds, "My desk is kind of a mess."

Pam gives him a raised eyebrow. "Jim. Your version of mess is very far from other people's. Especially some people in this office."

Jim grimaces. "Yeah. Poor Phyllis."

~

Phyllis drew Kevin's name. She starts with the top drawer, and finds:

-one sharpened pencil;

-eight pencils with broken tips;

-four dried-out highlighters with missing tops;

-fifty-seven loose M&Ms

-eight slightly-discolored M&Ms stuck to the bottom of the drawer, which she has to pry loose with a letter opener;

-an ounce of unidentified crumbs;

-twelve pieces of balled-up Kleenex; and

-several folded up papers that she threw out unopened after Kevin came up behind her and said, "You might find some papers on there with weird stuff on them. They're for my brother. He has me print them out at work because of these restrictions at his job. And at his house. So, you know. They're not mine."

~

Dwight approaches Stanley just outside the conference room.

"Stanley, a word. I think you will be glad that you drew my name, since I take pride in a neat and ordered workspace. If you have any questions-"

"I'm not cleaning your desk."

Dwight stares at him. "But you drew my name."

"I did not spend four years in college to sit and clean your desk. I am going to sit there and look like I'm doing something, just like I do every other day. And you better not touch anything on my desk. Understood?"

Dwight grimaces. "Completely."

~

Jim's desk chair is set too high off the ground for Pam (she has to tilt her feet to reach the floor), but she doesn't adjust the setting. Every time Pam looks at Jim, he's not looking her way; right now he is twisting back and forth in her own chair, looking at her computer. She left a Free Cell game half-finished when the meeting started, and he's probably finishing it up.

The main phone rings a few minutes after Pam starts going through Jim's desk. She spins the chair to face Jim and says, "The phones are set to voice-"

"Dunder Mifflin," Jim says into the phone before she finishes. "Just a second, I'll put you through."

Jim stares at the phone for a few seconds, then looks up and covers the mouthpiece with one hand. "How do I do that, exactly?"

"Keep the person on the line and put them on park 1," Pam says, but she's already turning away from the desk to walk over to reception.

Jim shakes his head. "Yeah, I have no idea what that means."

"I'll do it this time," Pam says, and does. She has to reach around Jim to push the right buttons on the phone, and Jim is still as a statue. She sends calls through to voicemail countless times a day without a thought, but now, reaching around Jim, who still won't really look at her, she finds she has to focus.

When she's done, Pam forces herself to be light. "Not as easy as it looks, is it?"

"No, it's not. I'm definitely going to let voicemail take it from here on out."

"Good choice." His hair is sticking up in a funny way on one side, and she wants to reach out and pat it down. She used to do that without thinking. Now she clasps her hands behind her back to keep them to herself. "Hey, how's the game going?"

"Game?"

"Free cell. Did you finish up? I thought you were -"

"Oh, yeah, I am. Haven't finished it yet, but I will." Jim turns in his chair, away from her a little bit, and brings the game up. It looks mostly unchanged.

"Good luck," Pam says.

"Thanks," Jim says. He doesn't turn around.

~

Kevin finds three Snickers bars in different parts of Phyllis's desk. He pockets two and leaves one behind; if questioned, he will tell her that they were past their expiration date and he threw them out for her own safety.

~

Toby drew Meredith's name, but refuses to take part in the exercise due to the confidentiality restrictions placed on Human Resources. Michael accuses him of being a party pooper, which Toby sees as another in a long line of indignities he has suffered at the hands of Dunder Mifflin.

Toby plans to spend the afternoon balancing his checkbook, but then Dwight arrives to complain about Stanley's uncooperative approach to the day's activities. He spends the rest of the day in the conference room pretending to take notes.

His checkbook balances perfectly.

~

Jim's desk is messy in a guy kind of way, with few personal things and a lot of clutter. Pam finds four pens that don't work sitting in his drawer, along with a bunch of faded messages and takeout menus for restaurants that have gone out of business. Nothing too incriminating or even very interesting.

This is what Pam wants to do: She wants to buzz him after a few minutes and make a joke, something like, "Hey, so what do you want me to do with this Celine Dion mix tape?"

And he would look at her and smile in that way that seemed to reach beyond an appreciation for the joke to an appreciation for the person who made it. For Pam herself.

And maybe he'd make a joke back, something like, "Why are you going through Dwight's desk?"

But they don’t do that anymore.

And so this is what Pam does: She starts separating the contents of Jim's desk, starting with the old messages.

~

Toby's refusal to take part in the exercise is almost enough to get Meredith to believe in a higher power. She takes the event as a sign and reinvents herself. She empties out her garbage can, wipes down her desk with a wet paper towel, and reorganizes the deep bottom drawer of her desk (file folders, calculator, spare pair of pantyhose, three flasks wrapped up in a blue sweatshirt).

She spends the rest of the day looking up clothes on the LL Bean website.

~

Kelly draws Creed, whose desk smells foul. Ten minutes after starting, she finds the paper towel with mungbeans on it and shows them to Michael, who is working on Ryan's desk.

"Michael! Look at this. Do you think I can throw this out? It smells disgusting. Ryan told me that Creed's desk smelled like death, but I thought he was exaggerating. He really wasn't. This is so gross."

Michael looks up from the computer. "What? I don't know, maybe-"

"I mean, it could be his food to eat for lunch or something. I think it's beans, and they say beans are really nutritious. They're great for protein, which is why I eat them every night as part of my dinner – beans and a rice medley, because I'm trying to watch my poly-saturated fat intake, even though Ryan says I really don't have to. Isn't that sweet of him?"

"I guess-"

"I don't know. I guess I'll just put it back. Better safe than sorry, right? How's it going for you? Have you found anything interesting?"

Michael is staring into the bottom drawer of Ryan's desk: empty, just like the two others. Kelly knows because she kind of peeked in them once when Ryan wasn't in. She needed a pen.

Michael looks up. "Not really. There's not much here."

Kelly thinks Michael looks kind of down. She decides to tell him a story to cheer him up.

"Did I ever tell you about my sorority's reunion last Saturday? It was unbelievable."

~~

Pam's desk is hidden from view, so she could get away with being messy, but she keeps it pretty neat. Everything is put away except for one pen, which sits at an angle next to the message pad book. It has two messages ripped off already, and the carbons left behind are faded but clear. Pam's handwriting is neat and feminine, easy to read with few flourishes, and she signs each message "PB" in the bottom corner.

Also on her desk, he has found: a bunch of Save the Date cards, which he piles neatly and doesn't look at again; several sharpened pencils; a half-full bag of mini-Cheese Nips, folded over neatly and held closed with a paper clip; a grocery list (milk, bread, Diet Pepsi, ice cream); and a pile of printed-out supply requests from co-workers.

The last is the most interesting. Angela has complained because the new hanging folders are a darker green than purchased previously, disrupting the continuity of her filing system. Toby has told Pam that Michael can't order anything from the Spencer's Gift Catalog for the office. Phyllis is apologetic in her request for a new stapler, offering to buy one herself if it's too much trouble.

Oscar sends an e-mail with a reminder of the new supply policy: generic when possible, cheap always. The new rules went into effect six months ago, and since then, people talk about their old pens and Post-it’s as if they're dearly departed friends. Jim doesn't have to. Pam has a secret stash, stockpiled just before Oscar sent out the notice, and she has been sneaking Jim his favorite pens and expensive white-out when others weren't looking. Jim thinks that's probably over, not that it matters; Jim won't be in Scranton long.

At the bottom of Oscar's e-mail, Pam sketched a hand reaching out for a balloon. Jim stares at it for a long time.

~

Creed likes Kelly's desk. It's isolated. He finds four dollars in loose change in the top drawer and takes seventy-five cents (enough for peanut butter crackers, not enough to arouse real suspicion). He finds an envelope of pictures in the second desk drawer and pulls out the ones featuring attractive girls (there are several). He spends the rest of the day making long-distance phone calls and trying out the pens in Kelly's desk to find the best ones to take with him when he leaves (he takes four).

~~

 

Angela cleans Oscar's workspace methodically and effectively, using the same supplies she uses every week on her own desk. Oscar sits five feet away, eyeing her suspiciously, taking too little care with her Precious Moments figurines. She appealed when she drew Oscar's name due to the recent poster issue, but Michael dismissed her by saying, "You see, Angela, that's exactly what this exercise is about!"

"You can stop giving me those looks. I'm not going to do anything to any of your collectibles," Oscar finally says.

"Fine."

"And I expect the same from you," he says.

"Of course."

She thinks she hears him mutter something under his breath about cats a little while later, but can't be sure. She moves his stapler to where his pencil holder used to be, switches the picture of Oscar with his brother to another corner of his desk, and smiles in satisfaction when she's done.

~

Pam means to respect Jim's privacy, and does for more than a half hour, but then she sees that one of his messages is missing a phone number and has no name in the "From" box. Also, it has a strange reference line: _Re: Michael's boots_.

 _Check them out_ , the message reads. It's dated October 2004, and it takes Pam a minute to remember: the message is from her, sent during Michael's unfortunate cowboy boots phase. That fall, he saw a John Wayne marathon on Turner Classic Movies and started infusing the office with the old west. Cowboy Hat Friday, Beans-For-Lunch Wednesday, an endless meeting in the conference room about incorporating the themes from High Noon into Dunder Mifflin.

The next message Pam reads was folded up with the first, and says, _Re: Today -- Has the clock stopped moving? Will this day ever end?_

The "Please call" box is checked. Pam doesn't remember writing the message, or if Jim ever got back to her. It's not surprising; she wrote a lot of messages like this one, before the office converted to voicemail.

She looks over at Jim – he's facing the computer, not looking at her.

The messages are all in her handwriting. From her. It's not like she hasn't seen them before.

She piles the messages in her lap and spins Jim's chair so that her back is to him, and begins reading.

~

Michael drew last and picked Ryan. Or at least he said he did. He put his hand in and read the name off while keeping his hand in the lunch tote, but Ryan never actually saw the piece of paper. It would have creeped Ryan out a few months ago, but now, Ryan finds he's kind of gotten used to it.

Michael's office is in better shape than his car, at least. The desktop is dusty but the floor is clean, and it doesn't smell like fish or anything. One drawer to his desk is open just enough to reveal a Chapelle's Show DVD with the cellophane off but the protective tape still in place. His has several Internet Explorer windows minimized; the away message on AIM is "working hard or hardly working? who can tell at dm!"

He's been signed on for four hours and has no messages.

Ryan sits at the desk and looks out. Pam is hunched over looking at something at Jim's desk, Stanley is staring into space, and Kelly is talking with her hands. Michael is staring right at Ryan.

Ryan hates this place.

~

Pam has an open Word document on her computer (mailing labels for Michael, created two years ago and unmodified since), and her game of Free Cell, which Jim has figured out but hasn't finished. The surface of her desk is neat and clean. He opens the drawers and separates her pens and pencils, piles up her papers, gets all of her file folders facing the same way, and he's done. It takes less than ten minutes.

He makes two interesting finds:

-A box of pens in Pam's third drawer, Rollerball 3x, Dark Blue, in a Rite Aid bag along with a half-empty box of NutriGrain bars and a receipt for those two items and a bottle of Diet Pepsi.

-A note in the steno pad, underneath the grocery list, "Remind R. about mtg. w/ch," underlined three times.

Pam's desktop image is a picture of Pam and Roy in Atlantic City. Pam looks happy in the picture – head tilted up in Roy's direction, smile wide and bright.

Jim also thinks Pam looks really pretty.

Jim would like to take Pam to Atlantic City. He would like to walk with her on the Boardwalk, buy her cotton candy or popcorn or anything else she likes. They would laugh at the same things and she'd put her hand in his (a small, warm hand; Jim remembers the way it felt on his face after he kissed her, the gentle pressure of her fingers, just before she pulled away and said, "I'm sorry, I can't," and Jim felt a piece of himself cave in.).

Still. Still, Jim would like to take Pam anywhere.

~~

At 4:30, Dwight comes out of the conference room and stands next to Stanley, who, as far as Pam can tell, has done nothing but stare into space the entire afternoon.

"Stanley. I think you should move."

Stanley stares at Dwight.

"Stanley," Toby says, stepping out of the conference room.. "It would be really great if you could go back to your desk. For the next half hour or so."

"Fine by me." Stanley gets up.

Pam spins in her chair to look at Jim, who is watching this as well, with something like a smile on his face.

Pam feels a little funny for a second. She turned around too quickly in the chair, or she's guilty over reading the messages, or maybe she's getting an ear infection.

Or maybe it's Jim. Not Jim.

Maybe it's the messages, the rush of things from the past, all of them in her handwriting. Some of them don't make sense ( _Re: Dwight TOTALLY_ ), others are boring. Some he started to write responses to, but never delivered – one message says, "How about dinner?" under her message ( _Long day. Angela insulted my boots again._ ).

She's sure she never got it, because the date on the message is 3/5/03, two days before the day Roy proposed to her, one day after their biggest-ever fight, and Jim never asked her to dinner.

It doesn't really matter. She wouldn't have said yes anyway. She wouldn't.

Pam waits for Jim to look away and puts the messages back where she found them, strewn around the bottom of his top desk drawer.

All except for one.

~

Michael considers the day a failure. He's learned nothing about Ryan from his desk, which is spare and impersonal. Michael suspects that Ryan still doesn't feel at home yet at D-M, and makes a mental note to schedule more business lunches with him.

Also, Kelly is kind of driving him insane.

"And then, the other day, I was watching Oprah: After the Show, because I can' t watch Oprah during the day. I used to watch her on my break in the lunch room, but ever since the Scranton affiliate moved her airtime to 4PM, I can't, because that's just when I'm in the car driving home. I can't tape Oprah, because that's too much of a commitment. You know? Oprah's one of those shows you need to be there to watch. You can't really tape it. It's like TRL. It's just not the same at night. You know?"

Michael doesn't respond, but Kelly either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

"Anyway, on Oprah, she was talking about having a successful relationship – she's started doing those shows again, you know, which I'm glad about, because I was getting kind of sick of her other stuff. Before it was, like, all Remembering Your Spirit. Now it's more like, half-celebrity, half-orphans in Africa, half-helping you solve personal problems. You know? And Dr. Robin was saying that when men can't commit, they're not refusing to commit to you, they're refusing to commit to a responsible future self, and I was thinking, maybe that's Ryan's problem. Everything with him is so temporary – temporary girlfriend, temporary job, temporary -"

Michael sits up straight. "What do you mean, temporary job?"

Kelly looks kind of surprised that Michael responded. "I just meant, you know, Ryan is a temp. It's not like he's going to be here at Dunder-Mifflin forever."

"Being a temp does not mean that he is temporary, Kelly. It just means that he's on a different payroll, and that we pay twice the rate for him that we would pay for a regular employee. But we do that because of how much we value Ryan. That is how much he is worth to this company. And Ryan certainly is committed to this job, to this company."

"Yeah, okay, but –"

"But nothing! I don't know what kind of stuff this Robin Retard is selling, but you shouldn't buy it, because Ryan doesn't have a commitment problem with anything other than you" Michael says, and starts gathering himself to leave, but before he can, he looks at Kelly. Her eyes are wide, and look panicked, and Michael gets a familiar feeling: she's about to cry.

"Wait, Kelly-"

But she's already turned away, started walking toward the bathroom with a hand over her mouth. Michael stands up to follow her, or get someone to follow her (maybe Phyllis? She looks like the maternal type), but doesn't have to; Ryan is already on Kelly's heels, and looking at Michael with something unpleasant in his eyes.

"Ryan!"

~

Pam did a good job cleaning Jim's desk. Things are back in their usual places, and the whole area smells like lemons. The entire office reeks of lemons, in fact; there was only one ancient bottle of cleaning spray in the supply closet, which got passed from person to person as the afternoon went on.

Dwight is reading the label. "Did anyone check this expiration date? These fumes could be poisonous."

"It's fine, Dwight."

"You have no way of knowing that."

Jim feels the familiar slow pressure building up inside him, and knows he should just turn away, ignore Dwight. Instead, he says, "No, I don't, but I'm guessing that a cleanser designed specifically for use in an enclosed office won't kill us."

"Won't kill us, maybe, but who knows what kind of long-term damage it will do? Especially considering the fact that it is – " He pauses to examine the bottle, holding it sideways and squinting his eyes " – nine months past expiration. We might not know the full extent of the damage for years, and then it would be too late."

"Too late for what? What can we do about it now, even if you did find something out? Aren't we already exposed?"

"I don't know. I'd have to look into it." Dwight is typing something on his computer now; looking back and forth between the bottle and his screen.

"Don't Google the cleanser, Dwight."

"I'll Google anything I want to, Jim." Dwight pauses, clicks on something. "Anything work related, that is."

Dwight gives Jim an obnoxious, accusatory glare.

"Whatever, Dwight."

Jim looks at his own computer monitor. A half hour left in the day, almost no work done, and all Jim can think about is the fact that Pam is staring at him. Jim can't see, but he can feel it, a prickling under his skin.

He doesn't look up. He doesn't see Pam look away, but he feels it happen. Where there used to be a prickling, there's nothing, until he sees her walk by him, toward the ladies' room, hunched forward in a funny way. Not in a good way.

Jim looks around; no one else has noticed.

~

Kelly is in the ladies room when Pam gets there, fixing her eye makeup, and she stops with her mascara wand poised in mid-air when she sees Pam's face.

"Oh my God. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong," Pam says, and walks past Kelly into a stall, closing the door behind her. She puts a hand over her mouth, and tries to keep quiet, but she can't help breathing funny, and you can hear every small sound in a bathroom.

"Something's wrong."

"Nope, nothing," Pam says. "You know, um. I think Ryan was looking for you."

Kelly takes a second to respond. "Really? That's funny. I just talked to him."

"Oh," Pam says.

"He brought me my bag. I needed my makeup because Michael said something awful that made me cry. You wouldn't believe it, he said-"

Kelly says a lot more, but Pam doesn't hear it. She's grateful for the sound of Kelly's voice, for once. Kelly will talk a long time, long enough for Pam to settle herself down.

She looks down to the papers in her hand: An old, faded message (How about dinner?); a bright pink Post-it (Ten of Clubs on Jack of Diamonds). Both in Jim's handwriting, angular and messy.

When Roy asked Pam out the first time, she thought it was a joke, or a bet, or worse. Her friend Melissa convinced her otherwise (He stares at you all through lunch, Pam. He's totally into you.), and so she said yes.

Roy was genuine. He liked Pam, for reasons Pam couldn't really figure out. When she asked him, after they'd been dating a while, he said something like, "I don't know, I thought you were pretty. And you were always quiet or off doing some art thing, and I wondered about you. I couldn't figure you out. You were, like, a mystery."

Pam was a mystery. Pam had been described a lot of ways by boys in school – okay, average, smart, weird – Roy was the first and only one to call her mysterious. Pam liked that, then. It made her feel powerful, strong, safe to know that there were parts of herself that Roy couldn't reach, that he only saw what she let him.

It's not like that with Jim.

" - Pam? Do you remember the name?"

Name of what? Pam plays back the tape in her head and has nothing.

She sniffs, and clears her throat. "I'm sorry, Kelly, what?"

"I was thinking maybe of going away on a weekend in the Poconos, like you and Roy did before, and actually I wanted to ask, where did you stay?"

"Um, I can't remember off the top of my head. I can e-mail you."

"That would be awesome. Ryan said he wanted to slow things down, but did you see how he just followed me to the bathroom when I was upset? He so totally cares! And I want to show him that I care, too. I make way more money than he does, so I'll pay for the cabin. He'll probably feel all guilty, but –"

Kelly goes on. Pam stops listening, starts thinking about how weird it is that she doesn't feel guilty for kissing Jim back. She's supposed to feel guilty about that, but the truth is, when she thinks about kissing Jim, she does just that: thinks about kissing him. The way his hair felt between her fingers. The gentle pressure of his hand on her back. When she does feel guilty, it's over other things: the look on Jim's face after she pushed him away. Not returning her mother's phone calls. The Post-it in her hand.

But not Roy. There's something messed up about that.

Pam sniffs, uses toilet paper to dry off her face and blow her nose, waits for Kelly to take a breath to interrupt her. "Hey, Kelly?"

"Yeah?" Kelly's voice is eager, cheerful.

"Can I borrow your phone?"

"Sure."

Pam opens the bathroom stall door; when Kelly looks up from her bag, she shakes her head. "I'll let you borrow some of my eye makeup, too."

~

Pam comes back to the reception area twenty minutes before the end of the day. Her face looks funny and it takes a minute for Jim to pin down why: she's wearing makeup. A lot of it. Probably going out somewhere fancy.

Roy usually picks Pam up when they're going someplace; Jim decides to leave early.

"It's not five yet," Dwight announces when Jim's computer sounds the shut-down chime.

"Thanks for the update."

"Where are you going? You can't leave."

"Yeah, I can." Jim closes his messenger bag, checks the clock: ten of five. Roy usually arrives at five of. He'll just make it.

"I'll tell Michael."

"Go right ahead." Michael is meeting with Ryan right now, and will bite Dwight's head off for interrupting. It's almost worth sticking around an extra minute to watch it happen, but Jim prioritizes. He packs up his bag and goes, doesn't even wait for the elevator. He runs down the stairs, pushes the door open with one hand, and walks through the parking lot with his head down even though it's a nice day, one of the sunniest so far this spring.

Someone grabs him by the arm just as he's turning down the row he parks in, scares the crap out of him. He turns around, expecting an attacker or, God forbid, Dwight sent on a mission from Michael to bring him back to the office for the last few minutes of the day, but no. It's Pam.

"You solved my Free Cell," she says.

Jim thought it was a nice gesture. Another mistake. "Sorry."

"No, I didn't mean – see, you didn't finish it, you left the last two cards for me, because you know I like to watch the cards go all –" and here she makes the little noise, wiggles her fingers. It's endearing, still.

Jim doesn't know what to say. After a minute, he turns to leave, but Pam doesn't let go of his arm.

"I wanted to say thank you." Pam stands there, holding him by the wrist. Her grip is warm and strong.

"You're welcome." Jim shakes his arm free. "I have to get somewhere."

"I'm sorry about the other night."

Jim starts walking toward his car. "Yeah, I definitely don't need to hear this again."

"No," Pam says, grabbing his arm again. "No, I mean. I mean –"

"You mean what, Pam? That you're calling off the wedding? Breaking up with Roy?" Jim turns around.

Pam is looking up at him. "Yes."

"Wait, what?"

"Yes," she says again. "I'm calling off the wedding."

Jim suddenly sees past the makeup: her eyes are pink. She's been crying. He has to look away, at the busy road on the other side of the parking lot, partly because it bothers him to think of Pam crying. Mostly because if she doesn't really mean it, if it's a joke, if it's something that won't stick -

"Jim."

Even if it does stick, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. People call off weddings every day, for lots of reasons. Even if it happens, it doesn't mean anything will change.

"Jim." She lets go of his arm, takes his hand. His right in her left, her fingers folding over the side of his hand. She's not wearing a ring. "Look at me."

He does, and she lets go of his hand, reaches for his shoulders, a little awkwardly. She pulls him into a kiss, which doesn't feel awkward at all, and when he pulls away (not her, him, this time), she doesn't apologize or think better of it or try to run away. She says, "We should probably get out of here."

"Okay," Jim says, wondering if she means for the moment or for forever. Either is fine with him.

.end.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted in 2006. Thanks to lesasoja, Amy, and Kaelie for the fab beta action!


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